Accent on the Future (a.k.a. Accenture)

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When Andersen Consulting broke contractual ties with the accounting group Andersen in 2000, the consulting firm was forced to change its signature name. In an effort to find a new moniker, an internal competition was held; an employee in Oslo submitted Accenture, meant to be a derivative of "accent on the future." When the name was adopted on Jan. 1, 2001, it was blasted as a generic corporate nonsense word only a management consultant could have come up with (which, essentially, was true). The change cost Andersen/Accenture an estimated $100 million to execute and was regarded as one of the worst rebrandings in corporate history. The new title turned out to be a blessing in disguise, however, when the Enron scandal erupted in October of that same year  permanently tainting the name of its accountants, Arthur Andersen.